While the U.S. was celebrating Thanksgiving day, Israel went through one of its worst crisis in recent years after more than 220 wildfires broke out that destroyed 1,900 acres forest throughout the country and forced the evacuation of whole neighborhoods in several towns and cities in central and northern Israel.

The massive fires started on Tuesday when parts of Zichron Ya’acov near Haifa had to be evacuated after a large wildfire was encroaching on the outskirts of one of the most picturesque towns in Israel. The fire consumed 20 homes and police found evidence that arsonists were responsible for the disaster.

Shortly afterward new fires ignited in other parts of central and northern Israel, forcing the mobilization of most of Israel’s firefighter corps.

Some 30 teams and six firefighting planes tried to douse the wildfires throughout the country while the first reports of arson came in.

The teams succeeded in extinguishing the forest fire in Zichron Ya’acov, but only after a number of houses were destroyed.

By Wednesday, large fires were threatening the Tel Aviv-Jerusalem highway 1 and forced the evacuation of the population of several villages and towns across Israel.

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Huge flames were surrounding the Neve Ilan community 15 miles south of Jerusalem while additional blazes erupted in Hadera, Lachish, the Haifa suburb of Nesher, Atlit, the Gush Etzion settlement bloc, Kibbutz Revadim near Bet Shemesh, the villages Talmon and Dolev in Samaria and in the area of the northern town of Kfar Vradim.

The situation aggravated because of strong eastern winds and the drought that has plagued the Jewish state for several years now.

Later Wednesday evening, Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu decided to issue a request for help to several friendly states. The Israeli leader asked Greece, Cyprus, Turkey and several European countries to send additional firefighting planes.

On Thursday morning, a new huge blaze broke out in the northern port city of Haifa that houses a large part of Israel’s chemical industry.

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Two neighborhoods of the city had to be evacuated but Haifa’s fire service didn’t succeed to control the fire that simultaneous erupted on six different locations in the city.

By Thursday afternoon 75,000 residents of Haifa had been forced to leave their homes while 700 apartments went up in flames.

Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav asked the population not to panic, but many people fled the city in cars, causing huge traffic jams.

While in other areas of Israel new blazes were reported, 13 firefighter planes arrived in the country from France, Great Britain, Italy, Croatia, Greece, Cyprus, Turkey and Russia.

Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to send two giant Beriev Be-200 firefighting aircraft to Israel in response to a request from Netanyahu.

The Israeli prime minister also decided to hire a supertanker plane from the U.S. that helped extinguish a huge blaze that raged in the Carmel forest near Haifa.

Gilad Erdan, the Israeli minister of internal security, told the army radio in Israel Thursday morning that more than 50 percent of the wildfires were the result of arson. Israeli Police Chief Roni Asheikh confirmed that some of the arrested arsonists were driven by nationalistic motives.

On Thursday evening, while in Ein Hod south of Haifa a new fire broke out, Erdan told TV Channel 2 that Israeli police were in the possession of video footage that proved some of the attacks were arson.

A short time later, security forces arrested a Palestinian who was trying to set the village of Kochav Ya’akov in Samaria on fire.

Early Friday morning, police arrested two Palestinian Arabs from the city of Jericho in the Jordan valley, Israel Radio Reshet Bet reported.

Both suspects were reportedly involved in a new arson attack on Moshav Meir in the Judean Forest near Jerusalem Thursday night. Some 25 firefighting crews worked all night to douse the flames but couldn’t prevent the destruction of at least 10 houses in the communal village.

Some 25 firefighting crews worked all night to douse the flames but couldn’t prevent the destruction of at least 10 houses in the communal village.

By noon Friday some big 14 wildfires were still raging, including a renewed one in Haifa, as more evidence was published about an organized “Pyro Intifada.”

The Jewish Press published video evidence of three Palestinian Arabs near the town of Ariel in Samaria who were caught on CCTV camera setting a field on fire near the security fence of the town. The Arabs used a molotov cocktail to ignite the blaze.

At the same time, the Times of Israel reported police were now holding nine suspects who were responsible for at least some of the hundreds of fires that ripped through Israel. Six of them were involved in the huge blaze that devastated two neighborhoods in Haifa, the Times wrote.

Oded Granot, the Arab affairs expert of TV Channel 1 in Israel, disclosed on Mabat — the station’s news show — that Fatah, the political party of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, was celebrating the infernos in Israel.

He said Palestinian youths were being encouraged on social media to carry out arson attacks, dubbed Pyroterrorism by some, instead of the knife terror that plagued Israel until recently.

The logic behind the new incitement was that one has a good chance of returning home safely after an arson attack, whereas a terrorist who carries out a knife attack is more likely to be shot, Granot said.

Granot’s revelations followed a YNet News report that contained a video posted by Hamas on social media showing Palestinians rejoicing about the fires.

The Israeli news site also reported that the hashtags “Israel is burning” and “the Zionist entity is burning” had become top trends on Arab media Thursday.

The YNet report, furthermore, contained a tweet by Hamas official Izzat al-Risheq, who wrote: “They tried to ban the muezzin’s call, and Allah rained fire on them.”

The tweet confirmed a Western Journalism report from Tuesday that suggested Hamas was trying to incite Palestinians into new violence against Israel after the election of Donald Trump as president of the U.S.

The report quoted Hamas leader Khaled Mashal as saying Israel was “playing with fire” over the new bill that aims to reduce the noise of the so-called muezzin, the loudspeakers on mosques that blare a call for prayer five times a day.

“It was clear that he [Mashal] used the proposed bill to heat up the Palestinian streets because in many Muslim countries similar legislation has been introduced to muffle the noise of mosque speakers,” the report said.